Welcome to our Library Webpage!

 Miss M Hankova - School Librarian

Welcome to Our

School  Library

I am sure you have heard of a saying that 'little things make a big difference'.

At Merton Infant School, we do lots of little things every day and we can see a big difference at the end!

That's why I work with the children. I never know what the day is about to bring and that is what makes it exciting.

Reaching deep into myself, sharing a bit  with my little friends every day brings a smile on my and their faces and makes their life more stronger. Well, that's what I believe in. 

School Year 2024/25

Easter actvities

At our school library we have done lots of Easter activities for the children from Merton Pre School and Merton Infant School. They all loved the Easter egg hunt in our V's garden, making Easter cards, decorating Easter bunnies and making headbands. Happy Easter!

1st April 2025

Posting Easter cards to the Popley houses

Today we tried to make a difference together by posting Easter cards. We do not know who lives in the houses but we created cards and shared them to make people happy.

Happy Easter everyone! 

27th March 2025

Musician of the Half Term FACTsFACTs.

Mrs Estlea has been introducing a Musician of the half term all school year. We decided to research some interesting facts about them, we read about them and shared. Even better that Y2 children wrote all the facts down and we added it to the Y2 learning timeline. Well done!

28th March 2025

Y1 Special Relative Day

Always a great day when we see our parents joining us in the library and sharing a story. We challenged them with a little activity to find books following clues and check the shelves. The children loved showing their parents around very proudly and we were proud of them being very knowledgeable to their parents. 

28th March 2025

Y2 readers visiting a tot playgroup  in Melrose Hall - round 3

What a great pleasure again!

Our very brave Y2 readers Arabella and Devanand from Eagle Owls shared a story 'The House That Zac Built' by Alison Murray with the little people in the local tot group. I cannot tell who enjoyed it more, if it was our readers or the little ones. Such a great success! 

Flower Power

Would you believe that the flowers have special powers? They are colourful, bright and they bring a joy to our lives. The children made these flowers very powerful not just using great colours but even describing their powers. That's how we ended up with flowers of FRIENDSHIP, flowers of ART, NATURE, ENVIRONMENT, flowers of LEARNING, HAPPINESS, RAINBOW flowers, flowers of LOVE, LIFE, even flowers of NUMBERS, PHONICS and READING and many more. It was a great fun creating them and learning new words. Remember, even tiny little flower can by magical!

21st March 2025

               The

Pet Potato                      

The Y1 children shared a story of The Pet Potato by Josh Lacey and Momoko Abe to support Reading for Pleasure. Eva, Lily, Hadia, Holly and Lizanne from Barn Owls kindly retold the story to the whole school at our Celebration Assembly. They were super amazing not just remembering lots of lines but also demonstrating lots of actions to go with the story. We are all ever so proud of them!

Y2 visited Chineham Library 

Y2 children had a great opportunity to visit a public library in Chineham. They learned about Dewey's code, sections in the public library and all about the activities they can do with their parents after school. It is always great to see how hungry they are after new information and discovering new options of learning. 

4th March 2025

11th March 2025

Pupil Librarians visiting SLS

What an opportunity for Y2 pupil librarians visiting School Library Services! They spoke to the SLS staff, they had a mini showing around and they had a chance to ask few questions and to find out more about where the topic books come from. Also we talked about the resources supply for our school. 

World Book Day 

6 MARCH 2025

A huge thank you to Mrs Barnard and her company Sparkle & Dream Teepees for

lending us these luxury teepees. 

At Merton we celebrated World Book Day in style! It was not a celebration just for one day, we were celebrating the whole week! Our Merton children were very lucky to visit a library and get cosy with a book in the themed teepees. The children had a great time in the Superhero's, Harry Potter, the Unicorn and the Princess teepee. Then they learned how to create a story choosing their own characters and the settings. The next step is to verbalise their story and use as many adjectives as they can to describe their main character. They all had great fun!

14th February 2025

We All Love Doing Different Things

We also celebrated Valentine's day in the library by talking and writing what we love doing. The children enjoyed discussing their activities.

Merton Pre-School in the Library

Every Monday and  Friday our little Pre-School children visit the library and have a great time. We share stories with follow up activities, we sing the songs and do lots of movements around together. The children learn to use their imagination and they love getting a reward sticker at the end. This is a great opportunity of a transition for the little children from the Pre-School. 

29th January 2025

A Special Visitor came to  our school library

The children in our school had the privilege to meet Simon Murray, the author and the illustrator of the Icky Doo Dah character. Our pupil librarians were very lucky to speak to Simon in the library and they asked him a few questions. It is another special occasion to remember! 

Y2 readers in Melrose hall - round 2

We visited our local community centre Melrose hall again. Maisie and Excel shared the Five Little Ducks story with the little ones and their parents/carers.  They both used great expression and made us vey proud reading to a new audience. Exceptional work Maisie and Excel !

Shoeprints 

This week the Y1 children made footprints by carrying out observational drawings of their shoe pattern. Micah made a great masterpiece! Have a guess what we are about to create from all these shoeprints?!

If you guessed a snake you are right. We celebrated Chinese New Year of the Snake by making a big long snake out of the footprints.

All about John Lennon

Lucy and Goodnews researched some interesting facts about John Lennon. Firstly they read a book. Then they captured interesting facts about John Lennon and his journey as a musician and a singer. Lastly both girls presented all facts in Merton Infant School celebration assembly to all the children and the parents. Great work girls! 

Winter Olympic Games and Sports

The children started learning all about the sports and games they could eventually do in winter. We discussed the Winter Olympic Games which will take place in Milano in 2026. They absolutely love practising skiing, snowboarding and bobsleighing in the library. You never know, there might be a future Olympic winner between them. 

3rd January 2025

Happy New Year 2025

We started a new year by making THANK YOU hearts in the library.

There are so many people to say thank you to.

There are so many things to be thankful for.

The children love the story 'Thank you for the Little Things' by Caryl Hart.

Little People, BIG DREAMS

The Y2 children enjoy researching interesting facts about inspirational people. During Celebration Assembly, Ella and Arabella presented facts about the popular TV broadcaster David Attenborough and Nufais and Aiben presented facts about the famous footballer Pele.

IMMI

Y1 children shared a lovely winter story called 'Immi' by Karin Littlewood. It is a story about how the simplest things bring great joy to the hart of a little girl in a faraway land. Then the children retold the story in their own words. Each child then created a book review to include the title, the author and the illustrator and wrote a sentence about their favourite part including a picture. Great work year 1 children!

13th December 2025

Posting Christmas cards in Popley

We thought it would be a good idea to create and post Christmas cards to the residents of Popley .

It is Christmas time!

No one should feel lonely! 

6th December 2024

Y2 readers in Melrose hall

We visited our local community centre Melrose hall . Poppy and Elliott both shared a Christmas story with the little ones and their parents/carers.  They both made us extremely proud reading to an unfamiliar audience. Bravo Poppy and Elliott !

Christmas Trees and Snowflakes

busy library 

It's that time of year again! Our Merton pupils have been captivated by the magic of the season through our beautiful Christmas stories. They have been feeling the festive cheer by creating the most bright, and beautiful Christmas trees and lots of snowflakes for our library gallery. Each day the children are very excited to open our story book advent calendar! A new story every day to discover and enjoy.

Road Safety week 

Crossing the road and staying safe was our next topic to discuss! The children practised by using soft toys in the library. They absolutely loved  being in charge of the traffic lights and playing our safe crossing games. We shared books about road safety and we read a story about Philippa Pheasant wearing a safety jacket whilst crossing the path in the woods. 

Antibullying week 

Bullying is a big word!

Use your voice, tell someone!

Be a good friend!

Teasing is not nice!

Don't call people names!

Compliment people! 

All of these statements are very important to talk about and we always do. Especially when it was Antibullying week. We shared lots of stories which supported our discussions. 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The children love acting out the stories in our school library. This week we introduced a story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Traditional tales is one of the Y1's most popular topics.

Seeing the children impersonating the characters like the stinky ugly troll and three billy goats of the three different sizes is amazing. They all love being little actresses and actors, facing the audience and saying their lines. 

MERTON REMEMBERS 

This week in the library we have an exciting and important project to complete. All the children will be given a Poppy to decorate, this Poppy will be added onto our remembrance day poster and presented during our remembrance day celebration assembly. 

Spooky Halloween 

Every year we at Merton love to celebrate Halloween in style! The children adore dressing up and we always end up dancing with lots of great characters like witches, skeletons, pumpkins and wizards. 

Pupil Librarians

We are privileged to introduce

Liana, Elsie, Carter and Addison

Y2 Merton Infant School Pupil Librarians

and

Immy and Aarush

Y1 Merton Infant School Pupil Librarians.

They all help in the library and learn all their duties. All of them were introduced in the celebration assembly. 

We at Merton Infant school are celebrating Black History month! The children have the opportunity to read books related to this topic. We have a beautiful display of these books set up by Mrs James's office where the children have access to them. In the library we have shared some lovely stories to help children to understand this incredible topic. 

14th October 2025

Recycling Week 

We at Merton talk a lot to the children about recycling. They like learning and talking about how to help  save our planet Earth by separating the litter into recycling bins.  We looked at information books about recycling and we shared a story 'Hodge Podge Lodge' by Priscilla LaMont and 'Christopher's Bicycle' by Charlotte Middleton. The children loved it. 

11th October 2025

First Special Relative Day 

The library is ready for Y2 children and their special relatives.

The children were very excited to welcome their special relatives in our school and to show them around our school library. The library was buzzing with the children and their relatives completing challenges such as finding books by the authors, reading stories, exploring the foreign flags and learning to say Hello in different languages. 

Y1 Chineham Library Visits

Year 1 enjoyed another visit to Chineham library having loved their trip there in YR. They were given the opportunity to explore many types of books including fiction, non-fiction and audiobooks. This allowed the children to extend their Y1 topic "Out and About". It also gives the children experience in how to use the public library. 

Parents are very welcome to take their children to the Chineham library to borrow more books or attend any other activities the library offers. 

Y1 library mini sessions are on

Our library is buzzing with activities every day! Y1 have started learning how to do a book review, finding who the author is, who the illustrator is and how to use their own words to retell the story.  

We made lots of autumn headbands with seasonal pictures on them. The children loved playing the game 'What Am I?', giving lots of clues and using describing words. It was a great fun!

Our new soft toys are very popular to cuddle and the children like making little stories with them. Step by step they learn to describe the soft toys using adjectives, they use their imaginations,  giving the cuddly toys magical powers and creating a storyline just like an author!

A big part of our library topic is looking at the animals and bugs which hibernate, like a hedgehog, a squirrel, a dormouse, a ladybird, a bumblebee, or a frog etc. We looked at information books and searched for some facts. Then we used step by step drawing methods to make lots of beautiful drawings of hibernating creatures. The children like playing 'What Am I?' game linked to hibernating animals and bugs.

New Books 

We started the new school year with brand new information books. They have been funded by parents' generous donations during our Merton Infant Fundraising Events. 

Our Summer Reading Challenge

Before the school year has even got started we have something to celebrate!

Huge congratulations to our children and their parents who embraced the opportunity to complete the big Summer Reading Challenge. We are so proud of all of you who made the effort to go to the library and find that magic hidden in the pages of the books. We would like to celebrate this with you!

Y1s

Y2s

School Year 2023/24

From Tiny Seeds to Shining Sunflowers

We at Merton love doing whole school projects which represents our family ethos. We work together, we laugh together, we are up to mischief together.

For our latest project each child was given a sunflower leaf to fill in with how they have become bigger, better and stronger! All the children had so much to say, from the children in pre school being represented as seeds, YR were orange petals, Y1 bright yellow petals and Y2 light yellow petals. Our green leaves represented our School Council , Pupil Librarians and Young Interpreters. 

Reading for Pleasure

All year we've been sharing with the children new stories by new authors in the library. At the end of each class library session during the story time we talked about different authors and illustrators. We love using our imagination to 'travel' with the story characters, visit new places and reading for pleasure.  

DIVERSITY 

We can hear the word Diversity all the time but what does it mean?  We found the answers in our library books and in the Jigsaw lessons.

D is for Different like Elmer the elephant showed us how good it is to be different.

I is for Inclusive

At Merton everybody is included in many activities like making our Merton’s Tree of Life.

V is for Variety 

We all have a different variety of skills. Some may be good at dancing or sports, some are excellent at reading and writing. Sharing a variety of skills makes our school much more colourful. I can do gymnastics.

E is for Equal Opportunities

Opportunities is one of our Merton values. All children at Merton are given equal opportunities All Y2 children are attending weekly swimming lessons or All classes equally visit our school library. All year groups had an opportunity to go on a school trip to Winchester Science Centre.  

R is for RespectWe at Merton respect every religion, every race and the traditions different people follow. It is another one of our Merton values.

S is for Sensitive

We value everybody and we are sensitive to other people’s needs, feelings and differences. Saving the Butterfly is a story where the Big One was very sad and sensitive and the Little One got her a butterfly to cheer her up.

I is for Individuality

Everyone is different, there are no two the same people even identical twins are not the same. We all have some individual needs, likes and wants.

Alex and Alex is a book about 2 boys called Alex, having the same name but very different personalities.  

T is for Talent

Did you know that each of you has a special talent? John in this book was good at ballet dancing. Maybe you don’t know what kind of talent yet you have, but think! What are you good at? What can you do better then anyone else?

Y is for Yourself

Remember! Be yourself, be bold, be proud, be brilliant a SUPER DUPER YOU!

Gruffalo trail 

Would you believe it is 25th birthday of the Gruffalo?? So we at Merton made a Gruffalo trail to celebrate!! The children had an opportunity to show off their acting skills and memorise the lines in the library. They absolutely loved it !!

Summer Sizzler

On Monday, the 13th May we hosted another successful reading afternoon. The theme for our Summer Sizzler was rhyming and the children had an opportunity to look at lots of rhyming stories with their parents. Then they also took part in lots of different activities connected to the stories. This included acting out the Gruffalo story in the library, making a stickman, cutting out the paper dolls and playing lots of phonics games. The children were rewarded with a sticker for completing each activity.

It was a really magical afternoon that ended with the teachers reading stories to their year groups.

Merton is my Home

Your home is where your heart is, at home, school or a special place you can feel loved and safe. No matter what skin colour, religion or nationality you are, we all like to belong somewhere. We at Merton believe and like to show by our Merton values that everyone belongs to our Merton Family. The children made their special houses to share who and what is special to them. 

Time to Travel

It is time to travel! This time we decided in our school library to travel abroad using the passports! Firstly the children filled in their passports with all information about themselves: name, signature, description, picture, age, etc. Also we learned about data protection.

Then they chose and read information books about other countries. They researched and found an interesting fact which then was recorded in their passport. The more countries the children 'visited' the more stamps they earned in their passports. 

WELCOME SPRING !

The children have been welcoming the new season of SPRING. We have discussed the changes we can see around us and are reading new information books as well as stories about spring.

The children love learning about the life cycle of butterflies as well as writing poems about new life and changes in spring.

We are welcoming Spring to the school library.

A very special visit from the Mayor and Mayoress

On Tuesday 19th March we were delighted to have a visit from the Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane, Councillor David Leeks and his wife, the Mayoress to watch the Year 1 Easter assembly. They also met some of our Year 2 children which included our Pupil Librarians. They enjoyed a lovely 'question and answer' session, talking about their favourite authors, the library and the Popley area.

Pupil Librarians

We are delighted to introduce Darci-Rose and Ziad, Merton Infant School Pupil Librarians. They both absolutely love their jobs and they call their duties FUN! 

Merton Pre School library sessions

Once a week our Merton Pre School children come and join us for a library session. The children learn the library basics.

Special Relative Day

Another busy day in our school library! YR parents and relatives came in for a mini reading session to explore our range of books and to spend some quality time with their little ones. 

WORLD BOOK DAY

We at Merton celebrated  World Book Day in style!

Dressing up or decorating a plain white T-shirt with their favourite character was just the beginning. The children were asked to bring one book for a swap which was a novelty and a great opportunity to bring home a 'new' book without spending any money! 

Then each class teacher was asked to talk to the children about any great events, proud moments, special memories and great opportunities which happened since September. Each class created a class chapter and each class presented them in the library within a mini library session.  

Our Merton Family worked hard to each put together a class story chapter, which we then used to create our beautiful Merton journey book.

Y2 Chineham Library visit

Year 2 enjoyed a visit to Chineham library to explore all the different types of books including fiction, non-fiction and audiobooks. The children had an opportunity to extend their Y2 learning and a broader link how to use the public library. 

The children were encouraged to share their experience with their parents and make library visits a regular family activity from now on. 

SLS visit

Our pupil librarians Darci-Rose and Ziad were very privileged to visit the School Library Service.   The SLS Lead Adviser Bridget Rowley and SLS Adviser Vicki Bennett gave the children a  tour of their library where they learned how important SLS is to our school. They were able to see the range of books available for us and last but not least they picked a couple of books for our Merton Infant School Library. 

The Three Little Pigs

Acting out traditional stories in the library is another way of teaching our children how to express themselves and how to use the English language. 

The children learnt how to sequence the events in the story and the different character roles. Also this way of learning helps to build their confidence as well as being great fun for all. 

HAMPSHIRE PICTURE BOOK AWARD 2024

Merton Infant School have taken part in evaluating four shortlisted books and selecting an award winner. Prior to voting for their favourite book the children reflected on how democracy within our school and the world work and linked this to our British values. All Y1 children felt absolutely privileged in taking part in this prestigious award. They worked hard with four shortlisted stories all week and they voted for their winner! The children are eager to find out if their favourite author and illustrator were chosen. 

Merton's Tree of Life

We at Merton decided to embrace the changing season of Spring through working together to create a Merton Tree of Life.  Every child within the school came to the library and embodied our Merton value of teamwork. They did this by making pink and green handprints. The children had lots of fun and they achieved a great masterpiece. Whilst doing this, the children were able to discuss the changing seasons and understand what happens in the Spring. We did this through shared reading and looking up facts in books from our library.

Winter Working Wall 

During our mini library sessions we filled in the Winter Working Wall with lots of facts about winter, animals, books, pieces of art and the children loved bringing new ideas every day ...

The children were introduced to alliteration and they loved the challenge to create one in the library.

Winter is not just about Christmas...

The children were very busy reading lots of winter stories and researching winter facts. They learned the facts to share in celebration assembly on 26th January 2024. Well done Y2 children, great TEAM WORK! 

We welcomed in the New Year and enjoyed the WINTER SEASON!

Winter carries on even after Christmas and even though we are not experiencing the joys of snow in Basingstoke, we are still learning and talking about icicles, snow fights and the importance of bird feeders. We are also learning all about the various winter sports. 

The children have learned how to make a snowman and used their skills to create a beautiful snow man   on paper.

Inspired by books:

Oh, no, Mr. Snowman by Clare Fennell and Nick Page

Snowball by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet

Inspired by story:

Owl's Winter Rescue by Anita Loughrey and Daniel Howarth

The children used their imagination pretending to be in a snow land. We made lots of footprints in the imaginary snow.

Christmas in the Library 

The children enjoyed coming to the library even more discovering the magic of the Christmas stories!

The sparkling Christmas lights are up!

The Christmas decorations designed and made by the children have been displayed for all to see !

The new approach of brainstorming has been introduced! 

Goldilocks and the Three Bears 

ACTING OUT

During the library sessions this week our children enjoyed acting out the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. The adventure started when the children walked through the "deep forest" as the story characters and found the door to the bears' house. The set up in the house was very magical. Three bowls of porridge, three sizes of chairs and the three little beds matching perfectly alongside the story. 

 Winter Warmer ! 

On Monday, the 20th November we hosted a Winter Warmer for our Merton children, their siblings and their parents in our hall, Venezia's Garden and the library. The afternoon was full of exciting reading activities including special guests and an immersive story experience in the library. The children loved acting out Goldilocks and the Three Bears story in the library. Parents also had an opportunity to learn a few tips from our amazing SLS advisor Vicki on how to read with their children at home. Our successful event ended by our Y2 star reader Lulu reading to the whole audience which was absolutely fantastic!

Well done Lulu ! 

Reading for Pleasure Y1 

New in Town by Marta Altes  

Y1 children worked really hard recapping the story and making lovely houses to build up a street for Jojo. They decided to share it with everyone too. All of them were so proud of themselves ! Well done ! 

Remembrance Day in the Library

All the children and staff at Merton contributed to making one big poppy for Remembrance Day  ...

Halloween Spells

Our school library was full of magic all week. We celebrated Halloween by reading lots of witchy books, we learned lots of magic spells and even the spooky spiders were moving around ...  

Magic cosy, Magic dozy ,

Bring more friends and let's get cosy!

Reading for Pleasure

Saving Mr Hoot by Helen Stephens

We share many new stories every day in our school library which brings the children joy and pleasure. The children have an opportunity to read to the small groups or just to themselves. Very often we read the stories more than once to find more details and to explore the language further. 

This time we read a story called Save Mr Hoot. The children have done lots of activities related to the story, they used different art skills, speaking and listening skills and they performed. We are about to celebrate their wonderful work in our celebration assembly! Well done! 

Our School Library 

Children visit the library once per week and choose either a fiction or non-fiction book to go home to share with parents/carers.  They scan their book using their own library card.  They finish the visit with a story or use the Mighty Writer story board to create and verbalise a story whilst reinforcing their knowledge of sentence structures, nouns, verbs, adjectives including punctuation.

Reading is the most important skill. 

Reading for pleasure. Reading for information. It is the gateway to amazing opportunities in life. Reading gives us the ambition to make a difference, to be the best they can be, to achieve and explore.

Mrs. James

Library Sessions 

In our library sessions we:  

• share lots of stories and we use our imagination when reading fiction books
• learn new words and we learn what they mean
• look for adjectives which can improve our writing 
• talk about the characters and we learn how to visit new places with them  
• practice how to find the information in non fiction books
• we do lots of activities like acting the stories out, changing the endings, writing book reviews and much, much more 

Y1 Chineham Library Visit

Year 1 enjoyed a visit to Chineham library to explore all different types of books including fiction, non-fiction and audiobooks. The children had an opportunity to extend their Y1 topic Out and About. It also gives the children a broader link how to use the public library. 

The parents are very welcome to take their children to the Chineham library to borrow more books or attend any other activities the library offers. 

Our Reading Corners 

We at Merton love reading! Our reading corners in the classrooms and shared areas are always full of books. The children like to sit down and get lost in the world of stories. They love using their imagination.